Noctilucent Cloud From Delta Rocket Launch

This was about a half hour after a 5:26 a.m. Delta II launch of the Mars Phoenix lander, so the sun was backlighting the smoke and the moon added more light in the front. It didn't show up great on camera, but there was a beautiful rainbow-like quality to this smoke. In years of watching shuttle and rocket launches, I've never seen anything like this.

MSH Oct. '08: "That Cloud Looks Like a...Guitar"

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